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There was a near-sell-out crowd at the East Hampton movie theater on Saturday night for the 6:30 p.m. screening of “American Hustle,” and a buzz was in the air that had as much to do with the scandal involving New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as any Academy Awards nominations.

We were the only people in the Bird House at the Bronx Zoo on Saturday. This was not surprising, since it was a cold, cold day and only about a half-dozen vehicles were in the parking lot when we arrived.

There were four others at the tiger display and just two besides us peering at the snow leopards. Between the five of us and another group, only nine visitors visited the giraffes when we were there. Nobody else was around as we watched some grizzly bears wrestling in the snow. No one ever stopped to see the bison.

Sharp-eyed readers of a nautical sort may notice a small but significant change in this week’s newspaper. For what I think may be a first, the tide table, which usully appears in the sports section, no longer gives the times of the daily highs and lows at Promised Land. Instead, it lists the ups and downs for the Three Mile Harbor entrance.

LongHouse Reserve’s Instore shop will be open for holiday shopping or simple self-indulgence on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. The shop is at the entrance to the gardens, off Hand’s Creek Road. The selections may be browsed anytime at longhouse.org.
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Late holiday “shoppers” will be welcomed at the Animal Rescue Fund adoption center on Daniel’s Hole Road tomorrow until 7 p.m. Refreshments will be served to those stopping by to size up potential pet companions.
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Little did I know all these months that the school lunch that I was making for one of my daughters was actually feeding someone else’s kid. Not every day, mind you. This has only occurred on those mornings when I felt inspired at the crack of dawn to boil up a pot of penne, toss it with pesto, and spoon it carefully into a Thermos. And, I only learned about it when my daughter mentioned in passing that her friend had asked why she had stopped bringing in her favorite pasta.

Most local after-school activities were canceled Tuesday as a light snowfall drifted through the air over the South Fork. Traffic on Main Street quieted down; the usual rumble of work trucks was thinner. The snow wasn’t sticking. The temperature was slightly too warm, but that did not stop the preparations.

From my window, looking out toward the Town Pond green, I could see the occasional snowplow roll past, all geared up with nothing to do.

When I was younger, my standing joke at this time of the year was that all I wanted for Christmas was socks. It was true then, and it is true now; socks are just fine, at least for me. For our three kids, however, gift-receiving is another matter altogether.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has until Jan. 1 to adopt a regulation establishing a prodecure to make official sea-level rise projections, and the D.E.C. will hold a series of meetings to hear public comments on the project over the coming week.

Beekeepers say that honey bees should almost never be exterminated when a hive is discovered. Debbie Klughers, with help from Dell Cullum and Russell Bennett of The East Hampton Star, safely removed an estimated 10,000 bees from between rafters in the Star office attic on Friday after they were discovered by roofers.

The National Weather Service forecast for East Hampton has moderated ever so slightly overnight, at least as far as snow is concerned. As of 3:40 a.m., it predicted snowfall totals from a minimum of 17 inches to a maximum of 28 inches. Still, if you figure that the actual amount will end up right in the middle of that spread, that’s a lot of snow.